Kent Indoor Classic, Detling
Braintree triple Adam Buxton, Lorne Gibson (Rayne Swan) and Trevor Blows (Onley Arms) continued their good form in International Open tournaments by taking Bronze Cup at the Kent Classic played at Detling showground. The Ab Fab sponsored event attracted teams from Holland, France, Belgium and Denmark as well as the top UK players. It was a long day with the team playing eight games over a twelve hour period.
In the preliminary round, a close game against Farmhouse (Portsmouth, Southern region) finished 13-10 to the Braintree side.
Round one paired the team against Holland. A 1-13 score line suggests a comfortable win for the Dutch, however, many ends were closely contested, with the visitors getting the luck of the bounce on many occasions.
A comfortable 13-2 win over the George (Kent) was followed by a 4-13 loss to a team from London region.
This put Buxton, Gibson and Blows into the Bronze competition which started with a 13-6 win over White House (Kent).
In the Quarter Final, they drew a mixed Anglian/Kent triple. After building a good lead, the opposition came back to 11-10 but Gibson pointed well at the next end to win the match.
The semi final opponents were from Chiltern region. Their pointing and shooting at the first two ends looked ominous but the Braintree side stepped up a gear and built a commanding 11-2 lead. The visitors responded with a run of good ends to close the gap to 11-10. This came to an end as they left the head open and conceded three points to give the Braintree triple a place in the Bronze final.
The final saw Oxshott (Southern region) take a 5-0 lead. Good positional play from Blows and an excellent shot from Buxton, gave them five points to bring the scores level. It also gave them the confidence to push on and take the match 13-6.
This Bronze success follows on from their Bronze win at the 2007 EPA International open.
Local player Simon Bird from Colne Angel, also played well when his team of fellow Eastern Counties Regional player Sofiane Lachani & Kent’s Nic Baxter reached the final of the Gold Cup. Unfortunately they met the strong French team who repeated their triumph in the competition last year with a 13-10 win.
Two Eastern Counties players, Simon Doble & Alan Brazier along with Mike Dow, also did well to reach the quarter finals of the Silver Cup.